Thanks to the newest post written by one of my natives (shout out Piotrek!) I’ve got to know about pretty interesting threat started on WebmasterWorld forums. Few days ago users have started to talk about removing the PageRank, the most newsworthy thing is the fact that Adam Lasnik (Search Evangelist at Google) joined the discussion. Here’s the most absorbing quote:
And the idea of removing PR from the toolbar… this raises some interesting questions.
PageRank is an important signal and remains one of many effective measures of quality, but admittedly it’s often viewed and used/abused in ways that run contrary to the interests of searchers and webmasters. Still, a lot of folks find the PR information useful; it provides a great incentive to try out our toolbar and explore its other features as well.
Given that many of you aren’t so fond of PR info in the toolbar, I’d love to know what feature you would like to see.
Seems they gonna kill link trading business. Without Google PageRank value of a site might be pretty difficult to estimate for a common user… Of course not for advanced ones, six months ago I published a post with a few tips how to value text links. You can take a gander at my writings, guess it’s still up-to-date.
Fortunately link trading is not a major source of my monthly income, I don’t even use Text Link Ads. Hope you do the same way 
August 10th, 2007 #
Thats not google talking though…. I doubt anything will change myself but I am often wrong!!
August 13th, 2007 #
They won’t kill the text link business.
What they do not want are unethical methods of boosting PR, like paying for links without the nofollow attribute.
August 13th, 2007 #
Hi Alex,
Boosting PR / SERPS one of the main drivers for the text link business, take that out of the equation and it may not kill it, but it will be very hard hit.
August 13th, 2007 #
Hi,
What you said is true for those text link businesses that think that unethical link-building is the way to go.
While ‘buying’ PR might temporarily boost traffic, I think good content and organic growth is the most sustainable thing to do.
August 13th, 2007 #
Alex, I totally agree with Jez. Without PRs common users will have much bigger problems in estimating value of links they buy, so after a few muffs they might say bye-bye to link trading and start to use Google AdWords (with transparent rules & crystal clear stats).
However, it could be quite nice. The more advertisers in AdWords, the more money we do earn, so… C’mon Googlers, remove the PR and let the CPC grow
August 14th, 2007 #
If they remove it from the Google toolbar it is possible it could still be accessed by third parties - although they may close this avenue off.
You would still be able to judge how valueble a site is by how often the site is cached, its AlexaRank etc.
It would certainly make SEO more intereting if they removed it.
September 24th, 2007 #
I think it would be a good thing because I’m still seeing people buying links for sites that claim to be PR6 or something but are actually just a clever domain redirect. Once the links are sold they remove the redirect and use it again to con people out of their $2.